A Fine Balance and Beasts in My Belfry- Books

Two books as different as chalk and cheese. I read them both recently. Here is an attempt at reviewing them.

Rohinton Mistry (A Fine Balance) is an author I have never tried before. I know, that sounds like a dish you eat. But authors can have that effect on you. An Agatha Christie is like a tried and tested recipe. Or a Wodehouse, for that matter. Or an Asterix comic. You know what it will do to you. But an untested author, you are never sure, even if you read a few pages at the bookstore before buying it. But this one was exquisite, and almost unputdownable (abbreviate it as upd for the SMS generation?). It is a simple enough story of two tailors, a beautiful middle aged Parsi lady and a young Parsi man. And a host of colourful characters who keep popping in to enliven proceedings. It's a story of individual pride (the lady not getting married to any of the line of suitors her brother brings in), of torture (how the tailors were low caste cobblers in their village), of hope (except one, none of the characters loses hope in the face of extreme adversity), and many other things, including politics of the mid-seventies. Certainly gripping for the way the story unfolds, and its myriad twists and turns.

The Gerald Durrell story (Beasts in My Belfry) is more of the tried and tested kind, but delightful nevertheless. It tells of the time that its author went to work for a zoo in Whipsnade and his experiences there. He is put in charge of the lions section, which actually contains many more animals, including polar bears and tigers. His description of their doings is insightful and hilarious. A true animal lover, his stories can be enjoyed even if you aren't one.

Nagpur is Cool

Yeah, I mean it in more ways than one. The first of course, is literal. It is raining almost like Kerala, meaning everyday. Everything is green for miles. And the temperature- I am feeling cold in July. Last year, I had experienced this for the first time, as in my first monsoon here. And mentioned it in my blog, calling it Nagpur as Ooty. It really feels like a hill station right now.

Activities, academic and extra-curricular, are about to peak, what with the classes on full steam. I just got back from a conference on Rethinking The MBA at IIM Ahmedabad. Based on a book by Srikant Datar of Harvard Business School, and led by him, the discussion focused on the experiences of Indian B Schools and what they need to do to survive and reinvent their programs. As it turns out, we are already doing most of these at IMT Nagpur. That's cool, ain't it?

Visited a couple of friends at Mumbai on the way. Got stuck in a massive traffic jam at Ghatkopar-Kurla, and I am happy to be back in Nagpur where such things are unheard of- it is cool in more ways than one.

My Encounters with Anopheles

My Encounters with Anopheles


I have tried to explore the meaning of what I do in my own way. Part of that exploration was through this series in which I converse with Anopheles, the female mosquito who bites.


A mosquito buzzed into my bedroom. I was sleepless anyway, so I started a conversation.

“Where are you from?” I asked.
“From the drain on Street No. 6,” the mosquito replied.

"Do you always have to travel this far for dinner?"
"Not really, but I go for quality food. So I don't really mind."

"Tell me something. Is it necessary for you to suck the blood of human beings to survive? Can't you find some other food?"

The mosquito looked surprised. "The human body has 6 litres of blood on an average. What's a drop or two for you?"

I replied, "Our sleep is disturbed, for one. And, of course, your bite is, quite literally, A PAIN."

"Do you really need so much sleep? Why don't you remain awake and think about things?" the mosquito enquired.

"Like what?" I asked.

"You asked me why I had to draw blood from humans. Have you ever thought about why you slaughter all those animals you use as food? And plants, roots and fruits. Aren't they life forms too? At least, we don't totally kill or destroy you. All we do is take a drop of blood, and go. Is that so objectionable? " the mosquito looked at me questioningly.

That forced me to lie awake and think about the exaggerated notions of the superiority of humankind, before I finally fell asleep- after firmly tucking in the mosquito net.


Episode 2

My bedroom was abuzz. Once again, the same mosquito was with me. I learnt from her this time that she was named Anopheles. After a Greek mosquito goddess. We continued our conversation.

"What do you live for?" I asked.

"For a lot of things. For family, friends and society. And for myself, to enjoy life as much as I can. To realise my potential for doing good." It was amazing to find a mosquito telling me things which I thought only humans were capable of thinking about.

"You told me last time you lived in a drain,” I said. "Do mosquitoes always live in drains?"

"Of course not. Some have palatial accommodation. Lakes, ponds, tanks, …even buckets. Depends on what you can afford. And what lifestyle you aspire to have. But if you have grown up in a drain, it is very difficult to migrate to the lakes. You see, they have a different way of life out there. And they look down upon us."

This sounded suspiciously like the GREAT CLASS DIVIDE, and I ventured to ask, "But aren't all mosquitoes born equal?"

She gave me one of those looks. "Are all humans born equal?"
Without waiting for my answer, she went on, "Then why do you think we are?"

After a pause, she added, "There was this reformer, a couple of decades ago, called FULL MARX. He tried to change things so that all mosquitoes would be on par socially and economically. He painted his revolutionary ideas on walls in his own blood. He called the series "MOS KAPITAL".

"What happened then?" I asked, with great interest.

"Nothing. He went the way of all revolutionaries. His ideas were too idealistic. The mosquitoes who became powerful wanted to keep the power at all costs, and succeeded. The dreams of a classless society evaporated quickly. Life became worse than before. So his ideas were abandoned, and we are back to the earlier system." On that sombre note, Anopheles waved me goodbye and sailed away silently.

Episode 3

Anopheles was back with a buzz (and not a bang). Our conversation this time veered around to education. I happened to mention to her that I was a marketing professor, and was surprised to learn from Anopheles that mosquitoes also have schools.

"How much have you studied?" I enquired of her.

"Not a whole lot, I'm afraid," she replied. "You see, I have a large family to support. And I am the sole BLOOD WINNER. That leaves hardly any time to study. But I do attend some short courses from time to time, to keep myself up to date," she added.

"May I ask what these courses teach?" I was curious.

“Oh, this and that. Some are practical, like the one I attended last week, called ‘Stinging Least to Draw the Most Blood,’ which essentially taught me how to increase the efficiency of a sting. Then there was another called ‘How to Minimise the Danger of Human Attacks’. Some of them are for fun, like ‘Floating in the Air’ and ‘Swinging From a Single Hair’, or ‘Training Your Young Ones to Play Hide n' Seek in Keyholes’.”

"What are the objectives of your formal education system?" I asked her.

"That every little one should grow up to be a good, honest, useful mosquito," she replied without hesitation.

"To what extent is the objective achieved?" I wanted to know.

"A lot depends on the students themselves. Some are motivated and do well for themselves. Others sleepwalk through their classes and remain unaffected. Yet others put their 'learning' to mischievous uses, and become blots on the mosquito-landscape."

"Sounds very familiar," I muttered. "Anyway, let's change the topic. What do you do for recreation?"

"We create buzzwords. That is our major leisure activity," she informed me.

"What do you mean?” I couldn't fathom this one.

"Just what I said. We have individual events, in which each of us buzzes a new buzz. If the panel of judges feels it is original, we enter the final round. The best new buzzword (an accepted new Buzz is called a buzzword) gets a prize. We also have team events, where a team can work together to create new buzzwords. It's a lot of fun."
Anopheles proceeded to demonstrate a new buzzword she had just made up, by flapping her wings musically. "Do you have buzzwords too?” She asked me.

"Yes," I replied. "But in our case, the objective is different. We create buzzwords so that we can confuse novices (sometimes non-novices too), and then charge them money to clear their confusion. For example, take the buzzword "Corporate Restructuring". Till date, nobody has been able to figure out what it means. The process of explaining what it means has spawned an entire industry - called Management Consultancy." On that note, I bade her goodbye, and settled down to some well-earned respite from a 'buzzy' day.

Episode 4

My winged friend sailed into my room once more. “What’s on your mind?” I asked her.

“Oh, nothing.” But quickly, she was out of her self-imposed silence. “Tell me, if humans are so smart, why aren’t they happy?”

This was an unexpected googly- a doosra. I tried to counter with a lecture on the longings of all human beings to be one with the supreme being, and their quest for real happiness, but I didn’t sound convincing to myself. As I had thought, my arguments were instantly rebuffed.

“What are the major differences between your life and mine?” Anopheles asked pointedly. I had to think hard. “You fly, and I don’t,” I tried.

“Come on, now. Next you will say that you are big and I am small, and that you can read a book and I can’t. Is that all?”

That got me thinking about why we as a human race existed, and all I could think of was the violence, the greed, the crime, the grime and the filth most human beings encounter in their lives. Most of our instincts and higher abilities did not seem to be put to the common good at all.

“I agree we seem to be spending too much time on wars over oil and ideology, …” I stuttered.

“So do animals, over territory or other egoistic pursuits,” she said.

“But we do have a lot of saints who show us the path, and lead righteous lives,” I added.

“How many did you have in the last hundred years?” she asked innocently.

I counted up to four, and gave up. She sensed my discomfort, and changed the subject.

“OK, let’s talk about the subject of parents setting an example to their children. What do you tell your child to look forward to in life?”

“A job with Infosys,” I joked. I could see a frown of non-understanding on Anopheles’ face (or so I thought).

“That is one of our fastest growing companies,” I added.

“Will that make your child happy?” This was getting tougher than I had imagined.

“I think so,” but I was only half serious about this whole thing. “The only two things ‘happening’ in a child’s life are admission to an engineering college and a job in Infosys after that, it seems,” I continued. “And I don’t know if that’s such a good thing.”

“What do children who join this great company do?” her curiosity was aroused.

“Write some kind of programs- instructions for making computers work”, I said.

“So the homo sapiens want to spend a lifetime writing programs to make the dumb machines work?” I had to agree it sounded ludicrous when it was put like that.

“Well, we also have the BPO sector,” I said.

“And what do young people do there?” she wanted to know.

“Hmm..they answer phone calls, make sales calls, fill out forms dictated by someone across the world, decide whether some applicant should be sold insurance or not, and a million other things.”

“And we thought our life was mundane,” Anopheles could not resist this one.

It was time for me to get into the questioning mode. “Tell me, do you have religions?” I asked her.

“Yes, we do.”

“How many Gods do you have?”

“Oh, lots. We keep imagining as many as we want.” Sounded familiar.

“How do you handle religious extremism?” I was curious to know.

“What is religious extremism?” she asked. I could not believe this.

“Don’t you have people…uh, mosquitoes who want to destroy mosquitoes following another religion, or at least banish them, or something,” I asked.

“Not really, we are very liberal. Our policy is to live and let live.”

“And ours, live and let die,” I muttered, inspired by James Bond.

I was getting late for office, and excused myself. “We’ll meet another time,” I told Anopheles, “and continue our tete a tete.”

THE END

Approaches to Life- Learning from Cricket

I used to play cricket in school. Until a few years ago, I was also a regular cricket-watcher. Now, I am an occasional watcher, mostly an hour of any match which interests me in one day is enough. But it can certainly teach you a lot about life and how to approach it.
For ease of understanding, I have tried equating different approaches with current cricketers. I am quite sure equivalents can be found among past cricketers too.

The Sehwag Approach: In old cricketing lingo, this is called the hit out or get out approach. It is good if it works, and enjoyable for the spectators-not always for the player. A carefree attitude, and living in the present moment are the hallmarks.

The Dravid Approach: Somewhat stodgy, appears boring at times, but it works. A person who slogs it out, unmindful of criticism, knowing that the team's goals are paramount. In life, a guy who slogs it out for the family may be an equivalent.

The Laxman Approach: A sort of via-media between the two approaches above. There is a tendency to play your shots, and also a high chance of bringing them off, unlike the Sehwag approach. Finnesse, rather than brawn, achieves the objective in this case. A balance between team's requirements and personal freedom, and also a willingness to never say die. For me, one of the greatest innings ever was the Eden Gardens double century against Australia played by Laxman. What a spirit!To paraphrase an old cigarette ad, 'Smoothness was never so satisfying'.

The Dhoni Approach: This has more to do with leading others, motivating others, giving space to others, and not trying to bask in the glory of everyone else's achievements. We all see around us people who can advice when needed, withdraw when not needed, and give others the credit whenever they can.

The Srisanth Appproach: This could be described as "Apne Pairon Pe Kulhadi" which negates the inherent talent that one has, by sheer lack of focus and application. Vinod Kambli would be an earlier example.

Murder2 and Zindagi Na Milegi..Review

The sequel to Murder has one major flaw- the story is old hat. The movie is still watchable for its surprise package-Jacquelin Fernandes who looks very pretty. Emraan Hashmi is his usual character, and the villain does his act competently. The songs are not a patch on the original, though.

The road movie Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara has another surprise package-Spain. If Sangam was an all-Europe tour of the sixties, this one is all Spanish tourism. But apart from that, it is a story well told, of three guys discovering a little about themselves and their important relationships, while taking a bachelor road-trip interrupted at various times by a suspicious wife to be, and romantic interests of the other two guys.

The story is well told, the dialogues are good after a long time, photography superb, and a couple of the songs are really good. It makes Katrina look natural rather than her usual fake avatar, and brings in some nice touches that only a female director could have thought of- watch the film to find those. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Having a Blast

I think English training will solve our modern world's problems. The British went away and left a vacuum (not a black hole physically). Of language, or the Queen's English, nice and propah, if you know what I mean. Why, I would have sworn things were quite hunky dory while they were here, and everywhere.

I propose they come right back, and train all these modern murderers of their pristine language on how to go about speaking and writing- if necessary, get started on Wren and Martin. If you can't distinguish a past participle from a green pea, or worse, if you confuse green peas (bless my heart) with Greenpeace of the protesting type, you don't deserve to ever eat the stuff again. Confound it, I don't know why I go on and on about the greenery, whereas what I wanted to talk about was the damn blasts.

Now, if every youngster in town keeps saying "Let's go and have a blast", what do you suppose the young terrorist would do? Yes, you are right, he'd get up and go for a training class in the neighbourhood, right? Right. Not because of any animosity towards innocent people, but because he'd been brought up to believe that others were doing the same for fun. These blasted youngsters, you know, they get carried away by what the other youngsters are doing around them,. And it's such a simple thing to correct. Just teach everyone that having a blast is so..well, colloquial, and does not mean using Ammonium Nitrate. And all will be well.

Dalai Lama and The Art of Happiness

He talked and an author wrote the book based on the interviews. The Art of Happiness is a wonderful intro to the Buddhist approach to the world, and on achieving a Happy state of mind.

There are no absolute mantras, but many of the factors that cause unhappiness are dealt with in a frank and no-nonsense manner, including all the usual questions that we have about illness, death, love, marriage, kids born and unborn...you get the drift. His candidness comes through when he says "I don't know" to some difficult questions, underlining that he is not a know-all. Solutions to many things lie within us, he says, and there are many layers to every problem. But he does give a few solid pointers- compassion is the key, towards all human beings. The way he explains it is- the test of it being good or not lies in how you feel when someone is kind to you.

He says we need to anticipate sorrow (including anything that gives us pain), and think about it so that we don't get overwhelmed if it happens. You can deal with it much better that way, instead of living in a fool's paradise and expecting everything to go the way we would like it to.

Romance according to him is fanciful if you expect it to last a lifetime. Instead, you should be prepared for other phases of an initially romantic phase in a relationship, and take it to a different plane. All relationships can be "rich" not just the romantic, and we have several people around us who provide us joy. If not, you can always go out and find a few. The ideas on handling enemies/rivals are also an eye-opener. Wonderful read.

Calicut Revisited

I had a chance to visit Calicut to attend a program at IIMK where I worked earlier in 2003. The campus (pic alongside) is so beautiful, you feel like staying there forever. The trees have grown since I was here, and so has the institute in number of students and faculty. There are still about 4-5 old faculty I knew from before. The current director was an old colleague at IIM Lucknow.

Calicut retains an old world charm, spoiled only by the gold showrooms, I think. What does the fascination with gold indicate? I have no idea. Went to eat at Paragon, a popular restaurant, with a friend, Ravi. Also visited Prof. Kumar, and family at the campus. The city is clean, and compact, and has not changed much.

The contrast between Bengal and Kerala is stark. Bengal looks a lot poorer, thanks to lack of any coherent plan for growth for 40-odd years. Kerala is dependent on the gulf region for its earnings, but has used it to improve life here. But the standard of spoken English and Hindi is poor, and is a problem impeding careers for youngsters.

Hope to return again for Kerala and Calicut are a sight for sore eyes. Amazingly green. Coincidentally, I also had a look at a TED talk series organised at IIMK the day I was there. It was an interesting event, with a diverse set of speakers from all walks of life.